-----Original Message-----
From: Gail Baker [gail--colwyn.org]
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 6:45 AM
To: <Address Masked>
Subject: AR stats and combat


Some ideas on stat representation and combat.

Can't you just represent the stats by general descriptions, e.g poor,
average, good, etc. (I think it was an RPG like Chivalry and Sorcery
which actually had individual names for each stat, e.g. Nimble for good
DEX, All fingers and thumbs for bad DEX, etc - to give the
players/characters a NATURAL way of talking about their stats.
Underneath it (behind the screen), I guess you might still want to use a

normal numeric stat for finer distinction (maybe not).

An idea that was kicked around for combat in RPGs was for each increase
in combat skill to give you a particular ability/move with a weapon.
For example, anyone can wave a polearm around defensively, but it isn't
until you get some skill in it that you have a chance of impaling (say),

or disarming your opponent, or using it as a lance from horseback
(probably not within the scope of AR - mounted combat!). You could go
the route of giving the moves obscure names (like the stance of the
spitting crane or whatever), and obviously you need a lot more than I
described (e.g. sweep low, high block, etc.).

Every move with every weapon is cross-referenced to create a giant
table, and each round the character and opponent's choices are
cross-referenced to give a result (which can then be the resolution of
some combat score for both char and op if you want to retain that - or
could even just be based on previous moves and current stats).

So a char who is good at combat is good only because he can do so many
amazing things with a weapon, but the player will have to learn which
moves are better against which weapons from experience, (and maybe which

moves form good sequences, if you go for a recent history - ala
beat-em-ups like Steet Fighter).

Cheers, Gail.